Q&A with Nabeel Qureshi, author of Answering Jihad:

Original source here.

NABEEL QURESHI is the New York Times bestselling author of Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. His latest book, Answering Jihad, released earlier this month and provides a personal, challenging, and respectful answer to the many questions surrounding jihad, the rise of ISIS, and Islamic terrorism. Last week, his USA Today op-ed was one of the most read and shared articles following the attack on Brussels.

Q: Tell me about your reasons for writing Answering Jihad.

NABEEL: My primary purpose in writing Answering Jihad was to respond to the present climate of confusion in the West. Terrorist attacks occur continuously, and yet our Muslim neighbors whom we know to be kind insist that Islam is a religion of peace. How can we understand this apparent contradiction? Is Islam truly a religion of peace, and if not, why do our Muslim neighbors keep telling us it is? The book is not intended to be a detailed treatise on jihad, but a necessary first step in responding to the present crisis of Islamic violence that I do not think will stop. It is my prayer, as the U.S. and other nations seek a way out of the current confusion and begins to answer jihad, that this book points a better way forward.

Q: You tell the story of your conversion from Islam in your memoir Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. Now that you are a Christian, how did you approach writing this book?

NABEEL: Writing the book, I wanted to make sure that I accurately depicted the feelings and beliefs of Western Muslims so that I could write a book that would be informative to them as well as to Westerners at large. In order to do that, I had to revisit how I felt as a Muslim investigating jihad for the first time; I truly was shocked when I discovered for the first time that the foundations of Islam were indeed quite violent, contrary to what I had been taught about “the religion of peace.”

What was particularly difficult was trying to walk the line of sharing this truth about Islam while conveying my heartfelt belief that people should be compassionate towards Muslims. If we overemphasize one aspect, it could appear that we are neglecting the other. In today’s polarized political and social climates, people are staking their positions on either tolerance or truth, but rarely both. I cannot afford to compromise either; my country is under attack by jihad, yet my family remains Muslim. Continue reading →